President Robert Mugabe’s own party voted to oust him as its leader today, a day after thousands of Zimbabweans took to the streets to celebrate his stunning fall from power after a military takeover.

The governing ZANU-PF party, which held emergency talks at its headquarters in the capital, Harare, to consider the fate of the president who had ruled for 37 years, appointed the previously fired vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as Mugabe’s successor.

Under the Constitution, Mugabe remains president, even if in name only. But if he does not resign by noon tomorrow, the committee members decided, he would face impeachment by Parliament.

The central committee also expelled the president’s wife, Grace Mugabe, as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League. Mrs. Mugabe, widely viewed as his likely successor, has not been seen in public since Wednesday.

She was barred from the party for life, along with several other government officials — including Jonathan Moyo, the minister of higher and tertiary education.

After voting to fire Mugabe as party leader, the party committee took up the matter of impeachment.

Innocent Gonese, the parliamentary chief whip from the Movement for Democratic Change — Tsvangirai party, told The A.P. that when Parliament resumed this week, the chamber would “definitely” put in motion a process to impeach Mugabe.

Mugabe was also meeting on Sunday for the second round of talks with the army commander Constantino Chiwenga, who had placed the president under house arrest.

The military, seeking to deflect claims of a coup, said that the action was aimed at rounding up ZANU-PF officials implicated in economic crimes that have ravaged the economy of the southern African nation.